Dr. Victor Fries (Pronounced "freeze") was an accomplished cryogenicist whose beloved wife Nora was stricken with a fatal degenerative disease. Fries placed her in suspended animation while searching for a way to cure her. But GothCorp's CEO Ferris Boyle stopped funding the research—and Nora's life—and pulled the plug, triggering an accident that transformed Fries' body into a cold-blooded form that must always be kept at subzero temperatures; at normal room temperature he will die.

Wielding a number of freezing weapons, he wears a protective cryogenic suit in his quest to somehow restore his wife to full health and avenge her fate—which he partly holds Batman responsible for.

Contents

When Victor Fries was a child he made a hobby of freezing animals in order to preserve them so they can continue to exist in the future. Worried by this behavior, his parents sent him to a strict boarding school where Victor felt outcast and became depressed. However, when he met and befriended a young woman named Nora, the two fell in love and later married. But their happiness was short-lived: Nora was diagnosed with a fatal disease, and Fries, sickened with sorrow, attempted to save her using cryogenic technology. However, the experiment went terribly wrong and Fries' equipment malfunctioned, consuming him and his lab in an explosion of ice.

Victor somehow survived, but now his body could only survive at sub-zero temperatures, and Nora's condition was now even more serious. In an effort to continue his wife's treatment, he constructed a suit which would now protect him in his altered state. Calling himself Mr. Zero, he began to rob several banks to get money. He was eventually thwarted by Batman and Robin, but struggled on. As Mr. Zero, he uses cryonic technology to create a gun, which fires a beam that freezes any target within its range.

After faking his death, Gotham City believed he was dead. During this time, Fries rearranged his costume and returned, calling himself Mr. Freeze. To this day he continues to fight Batman and Robin.

In Villains United #1, Freeze has frozen everyone inside a courtroom. While using a frozen man as a chair, he talks with the Calculator, who convinces him to join the Secret Society of Super Villains. During his time with the group, he fashions for Nyssa al Ghul a sub-zero machine in exchange for the use of her own Lazarus Pit. He attempts to restore Nora to life without waiting for the adjusting needed in the pool chemicals. However, she returns to life as the twisted Lazara, and escapes. She blames her husband for her plight, and estranges herself from him.

He is usually imprisoned in Arkham Asylum when apprehended by the Batman, as it is the only facility in Gotham that can accommodate his medical requirements for a refrigerated cell.

He appears in the Robin section of the No Man's Land crossover, as one of the villains competing for control of Gotham City's sewers. During this time he flash freezes the duo Tommy Mangles and Gearhead.

Mr. Freeze has joined with the Injustice League but was arrested after the villains attacked Green Arrow and Black Canary's wedding. Amanda Waller has the remaining members of the Injustice League taken away to a distant planet, Freeze included.

Freeze's head on robotic spider legs, inspired by The New Batman Adventures

Thomas Elliot once again returns to Gotham planning another attack against the Dark Knight, killing any criminals who threaten Bruce, but it was just a distraction. Hush invades Selina Kyle's house and removes her heart, then abandons her at the Sacred Heart Convalescent Home, trapped on life support. Batman is on his heels and is eventually captured, Elliot says that the equipment that keeps Selina alive, was created by Victor in exchange for money.

Mr. Freeze created a compound used by the Court of Owls to revive their Talons. It was also revealed that Nora was not, in fact, his wife; Fries had never even met her but obsessed about curing her ever since she came into his division of Wayne Enterprises cryogenically frozen.

Genius-Level Intellect: Mr. Freeze is a scientific genius, his specialty in cryogenics. He employs an extensive array of cryo-weaponry in his driven quest, motivated by his grief and anger over the fate of his wife Nora.

Polymath: Victor is also a polymath who has specialized in multiple fields of medicine, engineering and science.

Multi-Lingual: He's able to speak English, German, Greek and Latin.

Mechanical Engineering: He's a gifted mechanic, having built his Cryo Suit, Cold Gun and life support machine for Selina Kyle, who had her heart removed by Hush.

Genetics

Cryogenics Expert: While Mr. Freeze is a skilled scientist in multiple fields, his specialty is cryogenics, an interest that started at an early age. His skill has allowed him to put his wife in suspended animation and make multiple cryogenic weapons.

Mr. Freeze appears in The New Adventures of Batman episode "The Deep Freeze" voiced by Lennie Weinrib. This version is depicted as an alien that would die if exposed to any temperature hotter than -50 degrees Fahrenheit and that firearms from his planet are used as "freeze guns". Mr. Freeze also makes extensive use of technology such as making certain parts of his hideout "warm corridors" to accommodate his human underling Professor Frost.

In the episode "Bold Beginnings" he captures Green Arrow, Aquaman, and Plastic Man who tried to stop his plot to freeze the world. Batman however frees them and together they take down his henchmen and knock out his freeze gun and he is arrested. In the episode "Crisis 23,000 miles Above Earth" he along with his fellow Batman rouges attend a roast for Batman. In this show he is voiced by John Dimaggio.

Mr. Freeze appears in Batman: Vengeance as a boss due to targeting a scientist named "Isaac Evers, whom he blames for sending him a video-promoting Prometheon gas in order to spite him, unaware that the real culprit was the Joker, who planned to use Mr. Freeze's invasion of the lab as a distraction for him to steal large quantities of the gas. Michael Ansara reprised his role as Mr. Freeze.

Mr. Freeze is voiced by Robert Kraft in DC Universe Online. In his base in the Gotham Mercy Hospital he plans to use stolen diamonds to power a machine that would freeze Gotham so he and his wife Nora could live together.

For more than thirty years after his creation Mr. Freeze was had little to no true back story, and was little more than a minor, gimmick super villain. When the character was introduced into the DC Animated Universe, he was given a new, sympathetic back story, introducing his wife, Nora Fries, and great moral complexity with the character's cold, stoic demeanor coupled with a barely restrained vindictive fury, much like Batman himself. Freeze was very popular with fans and the comics soon changed to include the new rendition with a swiftly resurrected Freeze, who was killed by the Joker at the time.